Index of /dist/other/ssh-spawner

README file for ssh-spawner
===========================
@ TOC: @
@ Section: Overview @
@ Section: Basic Usage @
@ Section: Build-time Configuration @
@ Section: Runtime Configuration @
@ Section: Troubleshooting Connection Problems @
@ Section: Overview @
This document describes ssh-spawner, a component of the GASNet runtime library
which allows applications using many GASNet conduits to utilize ssh (or rsh)
to perform job launch. If installing GASNet on system which allows remote
shell connections to the compute nodes, this may be a lower-overhead mechanism
for job launch than use of the default mpi-spawner. This is also the default
spawner when MPI support is not present (or is disabled).
@ Section: Basic Usage @
+ Usage summary (option 1):
Many languages and libraries built over GASNet provide their own commands
for job launch. These should be used instead of GASNet's whenever possible.
They typically wrap the mechanisms described below, while providing
additional options specific to the language or library.
The remaining options are documented here mainly for those who are
implementing such a wrapper.
+ Usage summary (option 2):
Conduits which support ssh-spawner each include a spawner utility named
for the conduit:
gasnetrun_[conduit] -n <n> [options] [--] prog [program args]
options:
-n <n> number of processes to run (required)
-N <N> number of nodes to run on (not supported by all MPIs)
-E <VAR1[,VAR2...]> list of environment vars to propagate
-v be verbose about what is happening
-t test only, don't execute anything (implies -v)
-k keep any temporary files created (implies -v)
-spawner=(ssh|mpi|pmi) force use of a specific spawner (if available)
The ssh-spawner described in this README is used if selected by one of the
following three mechanisms, in order from greatest to least precedence:
+ Passing -spawner=ssh to the gasnetrun_[conduit] utility
+ Setting GASNET_[CONDUIT]_SPAWNER=ssh in the environment
+ If ssh-spawner was established as the default at configure time (see
Build-time Configuration, below).
@ Section: Build-time Configuration @
The ssh-spawner offers the following configure-time options:
--with-[conduit]-spawner=ssh
Conduits which support ssh-spawner each accept a configure option
of this form to set the default spawner used by the corresponding
gasnetrun_[conduit] utility, as described in the "Basic Usage"
section above. If this option is not used, the "mpi" is the
default if MPI support is found at configure time, and "ssh"
otherwise. However, one may pass this option to make ssh-spawner
the default for the corresponding conduit.
--disable-pdeathsig (auto-detect by default)
On Linux, it is possible to request a signal be delivered to a
process when its parent process dies. This can be used by the
ssh-based spawner to reduce the possibility of orphan (run away)
processes in certain abnormal termination scenarios.
Because there are 2.4.x versions of Linux where use of this option
can lock up the machine (as the result of a kernel bug), this
option is disabled for kernels prior to 2.6.0, and can also be
explicitly disabled at configure time.
--with-ssh-{nodefile,cmd,options}=<VALUE>
These control the default values used when the corresponding
environment variables are not set. These environment variables
are documented below.
--with-ssh-out-degree=<VALUE>
This establishes a default value for the GASNET_SSH_OUT_DEGREE
environment variable, documented below.
If your system does not permit remote shell connections among
compute nodes, then you should configure using
--with-ssh-out-degree=0
to ensure that ssh-spawner only attempts to make connections
out-bound from the "master node". Be aware, however, that this
may severely limit the size of jobs that one can launch.
@ Section: Runtime Configuration @
Environment Variables:
+ A list of hosts is specified using one of the GASNET_SSH_NODEFILE,
GASNET_SSH_SERVERS, or GASNET_NODEFILE environment variables (with
precedence in that order).
If set, variables GASNET_SSH_NODEFILE or GASNET_NODEFILE specify a
file with one hostname per line. Blank lines and comment lines
(using '#') are ignored.
If set, the variable GASNET_SSH_SERVERS itself contains a list of
hostnames, delimited by commas or whitespace.
For sites using a static hosts file, a default value for the
GASNET_SSH_NODEFILE variable may be set at configure time using the
option --with-ssh-nodefile=<FILENAME>. HOWEVER, if this is done
then *only* setting this variable manually can override its default
setting (since it has the highest precedence).
Note that if starting a job via upcrun or tirun, these variables
may be set for you from other sources.
The following environment variables set by supported batch systems
are also recognized if the GASNET_* variables are not set:
PBS: PBS_NODEFILE
LSF: LSB_HOSTS
SGE: PE_HOSTFILE
SLURM: Use `scontrol show hostname` if SLURM_JOB_ID is set
+ The environment variable GASNET_SSH_CMD can be set to specify a
specific remote shell (perhaps rsh), without arguments (see below).
If the value does not begin with "/" then $PATH will be searched
to resolve a full path. The default value is "ssh", unless an
other value has been configured using --with-ssh-cmd=<VALUE>.
+ The environment variable GASNET_SSH_OPTIONS can be set to
specify options that will precede the hostname in the commands
used to spawn jobs. One example, for OpenSSH, would be
GASNET_SSH_OPTIONS="-o 'StrictHostKeyChecking no'"
The parsing of the value follows the same rules for quotes (both
single and double) and backslash as most shells. A default
value may be configured using --with-ssh-options=<VALUE>.
+ The environment variable GASNET_SSH_OUT_DEGREE can be used to
limit the number of out-going ssh connections from any given
host. The value 0 means no limit is imposed.
The default value is 32 unless an alternate value was set at
configure time using --with-ssh-out-degree=<VALUE>.
+ The environment variable GASNET_SSH_REMOTE_PATH can be set to
specify the working directory (defaults to current).
+ Users of OpenSSH should NOT add "-f" to GASNET_SSH_OPTIONS.
Doing so causes the spawner to mistakenly believe that a process
which it has spawned has exited.
However, if agent forwarding or X11 forwarding are normally
enabled in your configuration, "-a" and "-x" can be used with
OpenSSH to disable them and speed the connection process (except
where the agent forwarding is needed for authorization).
+ The environment variable GASNET_MASTERIP can be used to specify the
exact IP address which the compute nodes should use to connect to
the master (spawning) node. By default the master node will pass
the result of gethostname() to the worker nodes, which will then
resolve that to an IP address using gethostbynname().
@ Section: Troubleshooting Connection Problems @
For the following, the term "compute node" means one of the hosts
given by GASNET_SSH_NODEFILE, GASNET_SSH_SERVERS, or obtained
from a variable specific to the batch system. These are nodes
which will run application processes. The term "master node"
means the node from which the job was spawned. The master node
may also be a compute nodes, but this is not required. The
term "resolve" means translation of a hostname to an IP address
using gethostbynname().
+ The ssh (or rsh) at your site must be configured to allow logins
from the master node to compute nodes. It is also strongly
recommended that logins between compute nodes be permitted (see
the description of the --with-ssh-out-degree configure option
for the alternative). These must be achieved without user
interaction such as entering a password or accepting hostkeys.
For OpenSSH users, the following options are used automatically
-o 'StrictHostKeyChecking no'
-o 'BatchMode yes'
which should ensure that ssh does not try to prompt the user.
There is no need to specify these in the GASNET_SSH_OPTIONS
environment variable.
+ Any firewall or port filtering must allow the ssh/rsh connections
described above, plus TCP connections on an "untrusted port" (ports
with numbers over 1024) from a compute node to the master node (and
among compute nodes unless the out-degree has been set to 0).
+ Setting of the GASNET_MASTERIP environment variable trivially
provides "resolution" of the master node's hostname.
Otherwise:
- The master node and all compute nodes must be able to resolve
the hostname of the master node.
+ Providing only numeric IPs for compute nodes (in GASNET_SSH_SERVERS,
the file named by GASNET_SSH_NODEFILE, or other source specific to
the batch system) trivially provides "resolution" of the hostnames
of all compute nodes.
Otherwise:
- The master node must be able to resolve the hostnames of all
compute nodes.
- Unless the out-degree has been set to zero, compute nodes must
able to resolve the hostnames of the other compute nodes.